but the economy always gets in the way of foreign policy. about the only piece to foreign policy that made its way to the campaign is first president obama's often repeated claim that he had taken doubt osama bin laden. and the benghazi. there's a coverup going here. something's wrong. it ended up being the wrangled poor susan rice's poor talking points. but even under that one, there was a bigger picture and a bigger december lesson that we can draw, which is the fighting in libya that produced the attack on the american consulate is part of the very long aftermath of what we used to call the arab spring. john kerry said we shouldn't call it that. it's going to take longer than one spring. and the people who did it were not members of the old al-qaeda. they were an off-shoot. they were inspired by al-qaeda. osama isn't there anymore. and that it's -- and the old al-qaeda probably doesn't have the capability to do 9/11 anymore but the problem of extremism is still out there and we have a very long way to go. >> i was going to ask about one t